Klimkin recommends Verkhovna Rada to recall invitation to PACE to observe election to Parliament

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin noted that if the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) confirms the powers of the Russian delegation, the Verkhovna Rada can withdraw the invitation to the PACE with regards to its observers’ participation at the parliamentary elections on July 21, 2019 in Ukraine. The Minister wrote about this on his Facebook page.

Klimkin noted that in January he sent a letter to the Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE / ODIHR), Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, in which he stressed that Ukraine would not accept applications for registration of Russian observers from the OSCE; and then the Ukrainian position was treated with understanding.

“If the PACE confirms the authority of the Russian delegation, then I, in the Verkhovna Rada’s place, would withdraw the invitation to the PACE to participate in observation of our parliamentary elections. After all, the PACE with Russian deputies and the PACE without them is, as they say in Odesa, two big differences,” the Foreign Minister said.

The Minister also stressed that there was no more trust in this Assembly.

As The Journalist reported, Ukrainian delegation officially stopped work in PACE.